Congratulations to Michael Bird!

Michael's book, The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus (Eerdmans) has just won Christianity Today's 2015 book award in the category of biblical studies.

This is great news. And it couldn't happen to a better scholar.

Michael's has done some excellent work on the historical Jesus and I hope the attention this book is getting will also inspire others to pick up his other books as well.

His monograph, Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission (Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2007), is a learned study and a model of academic erudition. In addition, his book, Are You the One Who Is to Come? The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question (Eerdmans, 2009), is a wonderfully balanced study.

So I must confess that I am praising these works because I have not yet read his latest. It has been sitting on the top of my guilt pile but because my recent work has focused more on Pauline studies I haven't been able to get to it.

Brant Pitre, in particular, has been urging me to read it.

And so I look forward to reading it though over the Christmas break. It'll be my reward for finishing grading.

Get your copy, here and let me know what you think.